With a new $5.5 million, five-year federal grant, a Case Western Reserve University researcher is leading an international team to develop functional materials inspired by some of the most desirable substances found in nature.

The bioinspired materials produced in the project will be tested in soft-sided robots, but are expected to have a wide range of practical uses.

Anant Madabhushi, the F. Alex Nason Professor II of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics, has been awarded two U.S. patents.

U.S. patent 9,721,338 titled “Method and Apparatus for Segmentation and Registration of Longitudinal Images” describes an invention that provides systems and methods for detecting and segmenting a lesion from longitudinal, time series or multi-parametric imaging by utilizing spectral embedding-based active contour. In addition, the described invention further provides systems and methods for registering time series data by utilizing reduced-dimension eigenvectors derived from spectral embedding of feature scenes.

RVS Rubber Solutions, a startup company co-founded by Case Western Reserve University student Pavel Galchenko, is among just 36 finalists chosen from around the world to compete in Singapore this week in an international business competition.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Galchenko, a junior biochemistry major. “It’s incredible. It not only gives us validation, but it’s truly an honor.”

Galchenko launched RVS last year with his best friend from Aurora (Ohio) High School, Yohann Samarasinghe, a junior studying nanoengineering and business at the University of California, San Diego.